


Redoubt

by matadelanimasola



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 9,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5207195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matadelanimasola/pseuds/matadelanimasola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>redoubt \ri-ˈdau̇t\: a temporary or supplementary retreat; a stronghold<br/>Seekers come from all walks of life, called by their devotion to the Maker and the Chantry. Some have come farther than others.</p><p>[Vignettes from the perspective of one of Cassandra's peers, in a mix of drabbles and longer pieces. Mostly gen.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scars

**Author's Note:**

> These vignettes don't follow a chronological narrative, with a few exceptions. It's up to the reader to decide for themself where each chapter fits in relation to the others.

       Her mouth filled with blood. She smiled through it. There would be a scar where her lip hung in tatters, but her face was already covered in the scars her people decorated their skin with. She cut down the brigand who had bashed his shield into her face, and surveyed the field. Her company had won the day, though it pained her to see so many of their attackers dead. It wasn’t their fault they were starving, desperate for food or the money to buy it. She spat out a mouthful of blood, grimaced. Yes, it would scar for sure.


	2. Blink

       She blinked and lost half a minute. Lace looked at her as though expecting an answer to a question Nia couldn’t remember her asking. 

       “Seeker?” she repeated. “Are you feeling all right? You look kinda green around the gills. From what I can see, anyway. How many scarves do you have on?”

       “Not enough,” she mumbled, tugging her coat closer around her body. She just had to see this mission through to the end, then she would be back in Skyhold with its lovely warm halls and hot drinks. And shelter from the infernal snow that soaked into her clothing and settled wetly in her lungs. The cough that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she tried to shift it. As soon as the war was over Nia was requesting a posting in the north, where the weather was sensible and hot.

       “Let’s get moving. The sooner we’re done here the sooner we can get warm again.” Lace looked at her as if she had grown a second head.

       “The pass is blocked, Seeker,” she said. The scout gestured to someone over Nia’s shoulder. “An avalanche this morning. We’re returning to the main camp, and _you’re_ going to see a healer.”

       Someone, she didn’t know who, took her arm gently and lead her to a tent. Lace’s voice faded, giving orders to one of her scouts to send word back to Skyhold that the Seeker was ill and needed to be taken back to the fortress. Nia tried to protest that she was fine, but a fit of coughing stole her breath and doubled her over, her knees sinking into the freezing mud.

* * *

       She blinked and lost half a day. The fever burned under her skin and in her lungs. Her bones were ice beneath it all. She could keep nothing down, not even the thin broth the healer tried valiantly to coax down her throat. At times she thought her tribe were speaking outside the tent. Her mother’s voice, soothing and familiar. Her siblings playing only to be shushed by the elders for making too much noise near a sickroom. Her other mother humming the old songs to the clacking of her shuttle as she wove.

       The fever wrapped around her. She was trapped by the blankets heaped upon her to sweat out the sickness. She felt the ancestors around her as though she was in a sweat bath, not fighting an infection in her lungs. _She’s delirious_ , they said to each other. _How long until the runner reaches Skyhold? She’s very sick_. 

* * *

       She blinked and lost half a week. Chills wracked her. She was exhausted, thirsty. Still nothing would stay down. Nia knew she should have been hungry, but even the thought of food made her queasy. A cart and horses outside. More hallucinations, she thought. Then the tent flap opened and through fevered eyes she saw her brother. He pulled back the blankets and she welcomed the cold air on her naked skin. He pressed his ear to her chest, listened to the crackling, and frowned severely. Her brother never frowned. Never. Maybe it wasn’t him after all. The part of her that missed her family, her home, reared its head and she cried like the child who had missed her mothers so fiercely all those years ago.

       A dark shape blocked out the light, and then she was bundled up into the blankets again and lifted in a strong pair of arms. Nia wept silently, because she had no breath left for gasping and sobbing. It was the Iron Bull who carried her to the cart and settled her there, and through her delirium she recognized the fear on his face. It should have frightened her, but she was too exhausted to feel anything.

       “Stay,” she rasped through the wheezing in her lungs and a throat made raw from coughing. Bull looked at Stitches, the man she had mistaken for her brother. He nodded, face grim. The Bull arranged his large bulk in the back of the cart and took the pot of salve Stitches pressed into his hand. The Charger’s healer went to confer with the scouts’. The salve was noxious and made Nia cough violently as Bull rubbed it into her chest and back. The mucus she brought up was red with blood, and Bull called for Stitches. With a lurch, the cart made for home and Nia lapsed back into her fever dreams with Bull murmuring reassurances above her. 

* * *

       She blinked and lost half a month. Cassandra scolded her harshly when her fever finally broke and Vivienne said her lungs were clearing at last. Varric quietly excused himself and left the women to talk. Nia was suitably chastised, and didn’t even try to defend herself. She should have known she was getting sick, she should have gone to a healer sooner. Nia was bed-bound for another few days, but she was prone to sneaking out for fresh air. The atmosphere in her sickroom was close and stifling, and the cold air felt good on her skin. She told Bull as much when he came looking for her one afternoon, and he snorted. It was the cold that got her into that mess in the first place and really she should consider moving somewhere warm after they won the war. She laughed and told him to walk her back inside if he was that worried about her falling into a frozen pond again. Neither mentioned those fraught few days in the cart. Nia still wasn’t sure how much of what she said was in her native language and how much was in Common. Bull said nothing about her ramblings and she was silently thankful.

       Varric found her when she was released back to her own quarters. For a brief moment he wrapped his broad arms around her, and it was his gratitude for her return to health that meant the most. They didn’t speak of her convalescence except for her thanks for him keeping her company when she could manage to stay awake for more than an hour at a time. She was sure he was at her bedside so often for the quiet and solitude. She wasn’t very good company, after all. But a very small part of her wondered if he felt guilty for rushing back to Skyhold after her unplanned dip in the miller’s pond, and not trying harder to convince her to come with him.

       It was Solas who puzzled her the most, though. They were civil, but had never really had the opportunity to get to know each other better than exchanging daily pleasantries. He stopped her as she walked past his atrium, said he was glad to see her well again and that many people had been worried for her. He didn’t go so far as to say he had been worried, and in fact Nia wasn’t sure whether her survival mattered at all to him, but rather it almost seemed as though he thought such a sentiment was expected of him. Nonetheless, she thanked him for his words and continued on her way with a small smile on her lips.

 

 


	3. Faith

       “Do not tell me you have not noticed the way they watch you, whisper when you appear. They think you are going to save them.”

       “What about you?” the Herald asked, pulling his hood down. “Do you think I’m going to save us?”

       “I do not know,” Nia whispered. She wanted more than anything for the Herald to have been sent by the Maker or blessed by Andraste, but that was a difficult thing to manage when she was in the middle of a crisis of faith herself. She hid behind the impassive face she had learned to show the world, even though her heart trembled. “I think you will try. I think that is all we can ask of you. For whatever reason, you have been given a power that may prove to be our salvation. Or it may kill you and us all in the process. There is nothing for us to do but support you as best we can.”

       She swallowed, took a deep breath. “The Maker has not listened to His children for some time. Perhaps it is time we look to our own futures.”

       Aelen looked at her. He seemed perturbed. “Nia, what’s happened?” he asked. He turned to her fully, putting his back to the curtain wall and the bustling scene below. “I’ve never heard you speak like this. You’ve always been so-- steadfast. More devout than Cassandra, at times, and that’s saying something.”

       “I have seen so many things, Herald, that would have made a weaker person question their faith. I am a Seeker; I have always weathered through and come out on the other side better for it. But this?” She waved her hand at the sky and the sickly green just on the other side of the pass. “This feels different. For the first time in my life, I find myself questioning the Maker Himself, not how we as imperfect beings have interpreted His will and the words of Blessed Andraste.”

       Her words died in her throat. It was blasphemy to speak such things, let alone think them. Nia prayed that the Maker would see her through the war at least, and then bring her to task. The Herald was equally silent for a time, watching her with a furrowed brow and an expression she had never seen on his face before. He seemed to consider his words, then reconsider. He stood next to her, then, a silent companion in the gathering dark and a comforting hand on the curve of her back. She welcomed his broad palm. It anchored her to the stone and reminded her that the Herald was flesh and blood, no matter how people revered him.

       “I don’t know what to tell you, Zauresh.” Her private name fell from his lips so easily, so naturally. She could count on one hand the number of times he had used it, and she suspected that was intentional. Even in private he only used her personal name when it would have the greatest effect, and the Herald was nothing if not astute. “I wish I had answers, but I think you’ll only find them when the Maker decides the time is right. Your faith is your rock. Don’t let it crumble. He has a plan for you, I’m sure of it, and this crisis of faith must be part of it. Like the Stone, you will outlast this storm. I know you will.”


	4. Dreams

       “I have had three dreams of late. Each were of my death. They were violent, and in each of them you were the one who killed me.”

       Cullen looked horrified and ashamed. Nia’s gaze was flinty. His eyes flickered to her neck where he would have succeeded in burying his letter opener only two days before if her reflexes had been even a little slower. 

* * *

       It was neither of their fault that they ended up in that position. Nia had walked into his tower office (without knocking) to confirm a report, and had startled him. She caught him on a particularly bad day, when the headaches brought back vile memories and their shades haunted the edges of his vision. The knife came up and before Nia could think, what lyrium was left in Cullen’s blood was burning and he was writhing on the floor. He told her everything then, in the height of his agony. She heard him, wondered why she hadn’t noticed the symptoms of withdrawal sooner, and confiscated his weapons. _To protect others_ , she told herself. _To protect him from himself_ , a smaller part of her said.

        _Find me tomorrow_ , she ordered. _We will discuss this when you are fit_.

        _Yes, Seeker Balalova_ , he whispered. She pretended the tears in his eyes were beads of sweat.

       He came to her in the morning, looking more haggard than she had ever seen him. He spoke with Cassandra, he told her. Had asked that she keep an eye on him and relieve him of command if he became unfit. He asked the same of her. She agreed. It was her job to watch Templars, but something about Cullen’s situation sat ill in her stomach. She skipped supper that night, and spent the evening on her knees in the Chantry.

* * *

       “I do not know yet what my dreams mean, Commander Rutherford. Maybe they are nothing more than my unconscious mind processing a trauma, or maybe it is what I fear will happen if this gets out of control.”

       “I’m sorry you saw that side of me, and I’m sorry for what I tried to do.”

       “I am sorry as well, for reacting as I did. Withdrawal is not a gentle thing.” Nia scrubbed a hand over her face. The ridges of her scars reminded her of a different kind of pain, one undertaken for faith. Though, she supposed, Cullen’s pain was also for his faith. “Cassandra and I have spoken. It will be her decision to relieve you of your duties if it comes to that. Of the two of us, she knows you better. My one condition was that there be oversight.

       “Your Templars will likely not take kindly to a Seeker watching their every move, so I will assign a neutral party to keep an eye on things for me. I would like your recommendations for the post on my desk by day’s end.”

       “Yes, Seeker,” Cullen replied. He looked as though the washers had been beating him against rocks for too long, all worn-through and thin.

       Nia breathed deeply and let the impassive mask slip away. As a Seeker and therefore his superior, she had to maintain that dispassionate façade. But as his friend she was allowed to show compassion. “Find someone to talk to, Cullen, even if it is only your horse. Speak about it, and some of the poison will bleed away. Scream and cry if that is what it takes, but do not lock it away inside.”

       Maybe she was imagining things, but Cullen’s face seemed a little less tired, his posture a little less fatigued. He may even have smiled a little at the mention of his horse, that beast of a courser who was sweeter than honey when plied with sugar cubes.

       “Thank you, Nia.”


	5. Icewater

       He was warm against her freezing skin, and she pretended that was the reason she huddled so close. _Because of the river_ , she told herself, _Because I cannot afford to get hypothermia. Because this is not love, it is anything but that. Because there is only room in my heart for the Maker_. She shivered and he pulled his coat tighter around her shoulders. It wasn’t enough, she still felt the freezing water closing over her head. He told her they’d be stopping soon, making fires. She would be warm again if only she kept walking and didn’t stop moving.


	6. Hair

       Nia reclined by the fire, half-dozing. Her bones ached from the cold in these mountains. It seemed that no matter how many layers of wool and fur she put on the chill still lingered and wouldn’t be chased out. She tugged the pelt that served as her blanket tighter beneath her chin. Varric’s papers rustled as he searched for something in their depths. A group murmured quietly as they walked by. It was hard to come across quiet moments like these in the middle of a war, Nia thought.

       Varric’s hand on her ankle stirred her from her thoughts. “Move over,” he said. Nia obliged, sitting up. Varric was juggling ink, pen, parchment, and a steaming mug of something that smelled alcoholic. She ever so helpfully relieved him of the drink (hiding her smile at his put-upon sigh in the warm steam) and freed a corner of her blankets for him to slip beneath.

       “Does it ever get this cold in the Wandering Hills?” Varric asked as he settled his writing desk and arranged everything to his satisfaction.

       “Never. Not even in the mountains.” Nia sighed wistfully. “The air is like a furnace there. I miss the heat.”

       Varric grinned. “A furnace, you say? I’m sure the Bull would be happy to find you a dragon and press-gang it into service.”

       “That is not a bad idea.” She grinned back, wolfishly. “I wonder if he put it in the rooms below mine if it would heat the flagstones? I do despise having cold feet.”

       Varric laughed, and they fell back into companionable silence. Nia leaned her head on the high arm of the sofa and watched the fire licking at the logs. The steady scratching of Varric’s pen, the shuffling of feet as people walked by on their way to and from wherever it was they were going. She thought she heard the Inquisitor’s voice at one point, or maybe that was Cullen? Perhaps it was rude not to greet them, but she was so comfortable and warm for once that she forgave herself the discourtesy.

       Sometime later she found herself stirring to wakefulness again. Varric was still there, though a plate of meat and cheese had appeared, perched precariously close to his elbow on the arm of the sofa. He passed it to her with one hand, still writing intently with the other. Nia knew better than to disturb him when he was that absorbed in his work. She wondered if it was another part of Swords and Shields, and if she should hint to Cassandra that at long last she might be getting the next installment.

       She ate until she was full, swiping Varric’s drink (cider, she thought, with something stronger added to it) to wash down the rich cheese. It had long since gone cold. Extricating herself from the many blankets she had piled onto the sofa without accidentally knocking Varric’s arm was no mean feat, but she managed it. The hearthstones were warm where she crouched in front of the fire and pushed the mug closer to warm it again.

       Absently, her fingers picked at the long plait wrapped around the crown of her head. How long had it been since she had brushed it out and reset the braid that kept her hair in check? Then was as a good a time as any, warmed by the fire and lulled by the quiet that was so hard to find anymore. The plait came unwound easily, the pins stacked in a neat pile before her crossed legs. The braid itself was more difficult, but the small comb all women in her tribe wove into their plaits to secure them did its job perfectly. Her hair was the longest it had ever been. It fell in thick kinks to her knees when she stood and shook it out. She wished for the resin her mother had taught her to use to keep the little hairs from escaping the plait, but she had been unable to find anything like it outside of her homeland.

       Nia was struck by an intense longing for home that was utterly strange to her. The other Orth children being trained as Seekers had spoken of their homesickness, but Nia had never felt it herself. She had missed her family, of course, but she had never wanted to return to the Wandering Hills. Becoming a Seeker was her higher calling and she wouldn’t abandon it.

       But as she stood in front of the fire, all the weight of her hair falling around her face like a curtain, she wanted to go home. It was a silly idea, she thought. There was nothing for her in the Hills anymore. Even if she could find her tribe again, she wouldn’t fit. She was too much changed after thirty years away.

       “The cider will boil if you leave it much longer,” came Varric’s voice, breaking her reverie. Her knees popped as she knelt again to rescue the mug with a corner of her scarf wrapped around her hand.

       “I’ve never seen your hair down before. You should leave it loose more often.”

       Nia smiled. “It is hardly practical, Varric. I can barely see through this mess, let alone wield a sword.”

       “After all this is over, then,” he laughed. “Or you could cut it. You’d look good with short hair--”

       She must have looked aghast, because Varric stopped mid-sentence. Even the idea of cutting her hair felt blasphemous. “The Orth do not cut our hair. Letting it grow shows our devotion to the Maker. He designed us this way, so who are we to change that?”

       “What about the scarification? That’s not exactly leaving your body unchanged.”

       “The scars are... “ She pursed her lips. It was difficult to explain to outsiders. How the scars defined their relationship with the Maker, how the young adult would sit through the thousand tiny cuts without showing pain, as Blessed Andraste had endured her pain. “Different. You are not Orth, you would not understand.”

       “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Nia. Shut people out like that.” Varric came and stood beside her, taking the cooled mug in hand. “Sometimes it seems like only Cassandra really knows you, and then occasionally not even her.”

       “I do not know how to be anything else, Varric,” she said quietly. “I have been a Seeker for so long that I think I have forgotten how to be open with anyone other than the Maker and the Divine.

       “Sometimes I wish I had Cassandra’s temper,” said Nia, with a wry smile. “Perhaps then it would be easier for me to show the quiet parts of myself.”

       “If you had her temper I would be afraid for all of us. I think you’d be able to take Corypheus down single-handed.”

       Nia laughed. For all she envied her fellow Seeker’s temper on occasion, it did seem exhausting. She prefered to keep her own counsel and approach the world with a level head. It was why she and Cassandra worked so well together. They balanced each other out. “That would be a sight to see.

       “When the war is won and things are settling, maybe I will leave my hair unbound more often.” She looked up at him, hands deftly plaiting her mass of hair into its severe braid once more. “And maybe you will call me Zauresh.”

       Varric was confused. “Why would I call you that?”

       “It is my private name. I only give it to the people I trust most.”

       “Well, Zauresh, I hope the war ends soon. I like you with your hair down.”


	7. Fear

       The sun hadn’t yet risen. It lingered on the edge of the horizon, bathing the world in a warm glow. The light belied the chill in the air, but the puffing breath from the duo practicing fiercely in the ring hinted at the changing seasons. Shields clashed, swords reflected the gathering dawn. It was the day the Conclave was set to begin and the morning found the two Seekers ignoring the daily bustle that moved around them. There would be no other time for sparring now, not with so much resting on the talks. Their respective duties would keep them too busy for these quiet morning sessions. Well, maybe it would have been quiet if the woman with intricate designs etched into her face hadn’t been spitting mad and looking to burn off that anger before she had to play diplomat.

       “I do not understand it, Cassandra!” Nia shouted as they circled each other, taking a moment to breathe and plan the next assault. “I am not here to interrogate anyone, and yet the people scatter when I approach! It is not just the Templars, and I know Rutherford does not think I have noticed how he avoids me, but I have.”

       “We are boogey men to them, Zauresh,” Cassandra grunted. Their shields locked, their feet skidded in the dirt. They wrestled to get the upper hand until Nia broke the lock and spun away, aiming a kick at her compatriot’s shins. “They will always fear Seekers, just as they will always fear what they do not know and understand.”

       Had she been a less disciplined woman Nia might have thrown her sword across the ring. She settled for her helmet instead, and it bounced off the fence with an almighty clang. The sun finally peaked over the horizon and light struck her face. She would have been an unremarkable woman if not for the scars that traced the contours of her face, bright against her dark skin. They whorled over a face that was broad, traced around a flat nose and eyes that were slightly too far apart, settled in the valleys of a forehead that was furrowed in angry confusion.

       “It is not just the Eye they fear,” Nia growled, shucking her gloves. Cassandra followed suit, albeit with more composure. Usually their positions were reversed and Nia was the one urging her companion to think before she ran her mouth. “They have never seen an Orth woman before! All they do is stare at me, day after day. Were we actually here to interrogate someone I would welcome it, because it would make our job easier.

       “How am I to work with them, Cassandra, when the entire garrison fears me because of my shield, because of my heritage, or both?” Some of the anger and frustration had left her, leaving her tired and drawn. Though her leather jerkin stuck to her sweaty skin uncomfortably, Nia moved into a series of stretches to keep her muscles from locking. She and Cassandra would be sitting through many meetings that day, and neither could afford the distraction of a cramped muscle.

       “They are wary of you because they do not know you yet. Give them time. Eat in the mess, visit the tavern. The more they see of you the more they will get used to you.” Cassandra was right, of course, but that didn’t make the sour taste in her mouth any sweeter. It was petty of her, but Nia resented her friend. How nice it must be not to wear the marks of her people for the world to see. “Maybe they will even come to see us as people, not our stations. And I will speak to Cullen about how he avoids you.”

       Nia sighed. It was going to be a long day. If she hurried there might even be enough warm water left at the bathhouse to rinse the sweat from her skin, and time enough to beg Andraste for the patience she so apparently needed.


	8. Names

       “Do you have as many names as Cassandra?” Dorian asked one day in the library. Nia hadn’t even heard him come up, so absorbed had she been in the treatise in front of her.

       “I do not understand the question.”

       “She has as many as half a dozen, I know,” he remarked, leaning against the windowsill (and conveniently blocking the draft that had bothered her for half an hour). “I was wondering if all Seekers have so many.”

       “Ah, I see.” Nia closed the book. “No, I do not. I have only three. Four, if you include Balalova, but that is a name I took for myself when I left the Wandering Hills.”

       Balalova. Her family would laugh to see her taking a place name, tease her mercilessly for the need she felt to tie herself to the land. 'Daughter of the steppes', indeed. Yet, it made sense to her. Since she had left as a child to be trained as a Seeker she had never returned to the hills that had birthed her. She missed her mothers and sometimes wondered if the loving, smiling faces she saw in her memories were actually them or what her adult mind imagined them to have looked like.

       “You’re not Nevarran, then,” he said.

       Nia almost laughed, but stifled it at the last moment. “I am not Nevarran. Do I look as though I am? No, do not answer that. I am Orth, from the Anderfels.”

       “I had wondered about that. The scars, I mean.” Dorian gestured at his own face. A familiar sinking feeling settled in her stomach. It always came back to the scars. After thirty years away from her homeland she had long since learned that people always focused on what they saw first. For her, it was the scars. She braced herself for whatever invasive questions were to come. She only hoped he didn’t compare them to the Dalish vallaslin, and she was pleasantly surprised by what he asked her instead.

       “Why do the Orth have three names, but the rest of the Anders only one?”

       “I have never given it much thought, to be honest,” she mused. As was her habit when she traced one of the swirls that extended down her throat and disappeared into the collar of her jerkin. “I would suppose it is because we are two different peoples. The Anders are tied to their lands, but the Orth are nomads. Names have more meaning to us. They tell us who we are and what is important to us.”

       Dorian nodded his understanding. “What are your names? Nia is one, clearly, but I’ve never heard anyone call you anything else.”

       “Nia is my use name,” she explained, setting aside the tome and rising to her feet. “The second name is my private name. Few people know that one; my family and those I am closest to. The third name is my namesake, and no one knows that save me. There are rules about what names a child may choose for themself when the time comes.

       “Aside from use names,” she smiled, almost fondly. “Those are given by the tribe when it seems certain the child will survive out of toddlerhood.”

       Dorian looked at her oddly, so she elaborated. “Life is not easy in the Wandering Hills. It is arid and harsh there, and infant mortality is high. To survive through infancy is a miracle given by Andraste Herself and it is kinder not to name a child until it seems certain it will see adulthood.”

       “If use names are given by the community, who decides the other two? Not the child, surely.”

       “Not all children are as silly as those from the southern regions,” Nia snapped. “We understand our place in the world from childhood, and choose our names accordingly. It is not something undertaken lightly.”

       “I’m sorry for being flippant.” He actually seemed contrite. Cassandra’s words from months earlier echoed in her memory, a reminder that it would take people time to get used to seeing her not as a Seeker who had come to rat out some foul deed, but as a person who had as equal a stake in the war as anyone else. “There are few opportunities to actually talk with an Orth person, let alone one who speaks Common so well.”

       There went any goodwill she might have been considering harboring toward the mage. Up went her expressionless mask and away went her willingness to entertain idle chitchat from a Vint altus. “I see that time has gotten away from me and I am late to meet with the Hands of the Divine. Excuse me, Alta Pavus.”

       Dorian watched after her with furrowed brow. It was clear from the stiffness of her spine and the scattering librarians that her ire was raised, but he was at a loss for what it was he said to set her off. Surely it was a compliment to say she spoke a second language well. Their first real conversation, and it had somehow gone sideways.


	9. Names, pt. 2

      Nia’s face was set in a frown. It was far from an angry expression, but it only grew deeper when the leather strap she was mending slipped out of her fingers yet again. Another pair of hands moved into her vision, held the frustrating thing in place. Blunt fingers, belonging to the one person she would really not speak to at the moment. It was his fault, after all, that her brows were furrowed and her lips were pursed.

      “You’ve been quiet,” Varric observed. “Quieter than usual. And you’ve been avoiding me. Not an easy feat in such close quarters.”

      Nia grunted and kept sewing. Varric was an intelligent man, she knew he would notice her avoidance eventually. She had hoped, somewhat foolishly from what Cassandra had told her of his personality, that he would catch the hint and leave her be. No such luck, though, it would seem.

      “C’mon, Beauty, you can’t give me the silent treatment forever.”

      And there it was. The reason for her irritation. It was only a nickname, and the dwarf had given most everyone in the convoy one, but it rubbed her the wrong way. Savagely, she tore off the thread with her teeth and set the strap aside. Varric’s flinch when her teeth snapped close to his fingers was entirely too satisfying, and Nia added it to her list of things to ask forgiveness for when she prayed that night.

      “Do you mock me?” she finally asked, settling back against the log that was her seat. The firelight glinted in her yellow eyes, almost a dangerous look.

      The dwarf sat down next to her, ignoring her foul mood. “I mock a lot of people in a lot of different ways. You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

      “‘Beauty’.”

      “Oh, is that all?” Varric laughed. “Everyone gets a nickname, Seeker. None of them-- well, almost none of them-- are meant to be mocking, no matter what the Lady Seeker may tell you. Maybe I do just think you’re beautiful.”

      Nia remained unconvinced. It was always Cassandra who was buttered up, the younger and prettier of them. The unscarred one. People took one look at Nia’s face and their gazes kept moving. It was useful and worked quite well for investigations. Cassandra was the chattier (she laughed to even think that--Cassandra, chatty?) of the two, the more beautiful. But there was Nia, arms crossed and silently intimidating, standing next to her fellow Seeker. It was interesting the effect the mere presence of someone from so alien a place as the Wandering Hills could have on a reticent subject.

      Nia was not used to sweet words, though she should have expected nothing less from one Varric Tethras. As in all things, Nia kept her thoughts to herself. Her misgivings still lingered. There were enough people who gaped in fear at the sight of her face (‘fearsome’ someone had called her once) that she distrusted any who said otherwise. Something of that distrust must have showed on her face, a sour pursing of her lips.

      Varric said with a cheeky grin, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

      The Seeker merely grunted again and pulled a tunic from her bag that needed repairing. Varric, to his credit, didn’t seem to be insulted by her dismissal. Instead, he launched into a story of his exploits with Hawke that he assured her would not be found in any book. If he noticed how Nia’s needle slowed and eventually stilled when he got to the climax of the story, he had the decency not to comment. He knew better than to break concentration when his audience was so enraptured.


	10. Literature

      “Seeker?” Cullen sounded hesitant to interrupt Nia’s reading, but she put aside her book and shaded her eyes from the sun streaming down behind him. It was an interesting effect, the way his golden hair was haloed in light. She had seen the same effect done in stained glass in several Orlesian Chantries. It served to make him look far younger than he usually did, but that was more likely to be attributed to the proper rest he finally seemed to be getting. It made Nia all the more aware that she was nearly fifteen years his senior.

      “Sit down, Commander, or I’ll strain my neck,” she said, not unkindly. There was silence for a moment as each took in the spring sunshine, that, though watery and not at full strength yet, still warmed them and the ancient stones they sat on. “Is there something on your mind?”

      “Yes, I suppose there is,” he said, smiling ruefully and rubbing the back of his neck. A nervous habit of his, she recognized.

      Nia remembered her words to him some months ago, at the worst of his withdrawal. _Find someone to talk to Cullen. Bleed away the poison_. She hoped that this wasn’t the first time he was talking about it since their conversation. “If you want to talk about it, I am here to listen.”

      “I--” he huffed a little laugh that was less amused and more sad. “I find I don’t know where to begin. Perhaps I should speak with Mother Giselle instead, I shouldn’t bother you with this--.” As he stood to leave ( _Flee_ , her mind supplied) she caught his elbow.

      “You came to me first for a reason, Cullen. Sit. Tell me what is bothering you.” Nia was not in the habit of using first names very often. A lifetime of keeping her own names close to her heart and a lifetime of martial training made it very hard for her to use familiar terms. As in all things, there was a time and a place for that familiarity, and it seemed to set Cullen at ease at least a little. Nia made a note to use first names more often with her Fereldan colleagues.

      “How do you keep your faith?” he asked, surprising her. She had thought he would ask about his performance and if it was still acceptable or whether she was pushing to have him removed from command. “Everything that’s going on around us, all this mess with the Red Templars and Corypheus, and you’ve never once shown any sign of wavering. Even Cassandra struggles with it sometimes, but not you.”

      “That is… not an easy question to answer,” she replied, then continued when Cullen seemed on the verge of apologizing for bothering her and taking his leave. “Not for the reasons you might think, however. It is difficult to answer because I am not sure I can explain it fully.

      “Here,” she said, handing him the book she was reading. “This is part of why my faith has never faltered.”

      “ _Questioning the Chant_? Nia, this book has been banned for-- well, since it was written! How in the Maker’s Name has this helped you keep your faith?”

      “Cullen, I read such things because we are fallible. Humans, elves, dwarves, Qunari; all of us. Language changes, meanings fade. Things are lost to time. Like everyone, I wrestle with my faith and the nature of the world the Maker created for us. I read to expand my worldview and I question the tenets of our faith so that I may, Maker willing, arrive at a deeper understanding of His Word and His plan for us. I suppose it might be said that I have never questioned my faith because I have always questioned it. I find myself stronger for the struggle.”

      Cullen didn’t like her answer, she could tell. It was something in the stubborn set of his jaw and the downturn of his lips. “I don’t understand. The Chant-- it came from Andraste, given to her by the Maker Himself to give to the world. We shouldn’t question His word.”

      “I do not question His word, only how we have interpreted it. Anyone’s words, even the Maker’s, may be manipulated and made to seem as though they say something else. It is only by seeking out those texts that are contrary to what we are taught that we may decide for ourselves what to believe.” Nia smiled, a stunted thing more sad than happy. “Blind faith is not enough anymore, not for the world we live in now.”

      “I don’t like it, Nia,” Cullen frowned. “It’s heresy, and dangerously close to apostasy. Did the Divine know? Does Cassandra know?”

      “Justinia knew. She did not encourage me, but she did not discourage me either. I think she recognized that it makes me a stronger woman, a better Seeker.” She did smile, then, and huffed a quiet laugh. “Cassandra knows, and she disapproves greatly. It is the one thing guaranteed to start an argument between us, so we avoid speaking of it.

      “Read it or do not, Cullen, but think on this: the Maker gave us the gift of higher thought. If He did not mean for us to ask questions about what it means to be a person and how best we can serve Him in our lives, why would He have done such a thing?”


	11. Missing

      There was a stump where the little finger on her left hand used to be. It was an old wound, long since healed, but it still ached on occasion. Sometimes she could even have sworn it was still there. She lost it during the Blight, taking a blow from a darkspawn on her hand that split it neatly down to her palm. The wound had festered, and removal was the only option. Anders. It was he who had taken a knife to the digit, severed the tendons and burned out the remaining infection. She let him leave when all was settled and the Keep was slowly putting itself back together. Her jurisdiction ended when Rylock was killed by the Warden-Commander. Rylock had been in the wrong, anyway; the Rite of Conscription superseded all else, after all, even for an apostate. Maybe if she hadn’t let him go she could have prevented what happened all those years later. Confining him in a Circle might have saved Kirkwall, or it might have caused him to work those same vile deeds elsewhere. Speculation was not something she liked to engage in. Everything happened for a reason, every action was part of the Maker’s plan for the world. But it was still hard to reconcile all those lives lost.

      So many people dead, and a world left reeling, too busy tearing itself apart to start rebuilding.


	12. Hair, pt. 2

      The first time Nia found a white hair mixed in amongst the black she was only twenty-three. Her fellow Seekers teased her good naturedly about how she was getting old and would need to retire soon. She laughed, and mostly forgot about it. She was young, in the prime of her life, doing the Maker’s work. Finding a white hair or two was utterly unimportant.

      The second time she found white hair she was older. Not by much, barely on the far side of thirty. The mother who gave birth to her had gone completely grey by the time she was thirty-five. She dyed hers a vibrant blue-black, the color favored among the tribe for their tunics. The dark garments kept the desert heat off, so her mother reasoned that the color would do the same for her head. Nia never knew if it worked or not. Threads of grey wove in and out of her plaits, and though she would never admit to the vanity she liked the way it looked.

      When the Blight came she found more white hair than ever. Stress, she thought, and not nearly enough sleep. She was still more black than silver, but it was noticeable now. She wondered if people thought her too old to be fighting anymore. Her joints started to agree with them. She wasn’t a young woman at thirty-six, but you’d never know it by watching her fight. She commanded efficiently (ruthlessly, if camp talk among the soldiers was to be believed) and wielded her faith like her spear.

      Then came the destruction of Kirkwall’s Chantry and the start of yet another war. Nia stopped caring about her hair at forty-five (or was it forty-four?). She no longer gazed at it in the small piece of polished brass she used for a mirror as she combed it out and set the plaits that controlled it in place again. It was unimportant, and if it wasn’t one of the few things she had left of the homeland she remembered only poorly she would have cut it all off like Cassandra.

      So she wore it braided and woven tightly around her head, wrapped in a scarf to keep it clean and stop it from catching when taking her helmet on and off. What did color matter when the Veil was tearing itself apart in front of their very eyes?


	13. Weapons

      Spears were the favored weapons of the Orth. Slender things that were more dart than true polearm, easily thrown and easily made. Nia’s was none of those things. It stood as tall as she, tipped with a leaf shaped blade as long as her hand. A counterweight on the other end, etched with the same designs that decorated her face. It was a heavy thing, made of the ironwood that grew along the river bottoms on the southern end of the Wandering Hills. She trained with it every morning, twisting and spinning in the rising light and taking apart whatever dummy was nearest with brutal efficiency.

      Cassandra joined her when her own schedule allowed, and they practiced with shields. Even at dawn their exercises drew a small crowd, entranced by the dance of weapon and shield, how they treated each sparring session as a battle and rarely pulled their blows. Even the Chargers joined in on occasion, pitting the two women against a squad of their fighters, or more. Sometimes they lost, sometimes they won, sometimes it was a draw. It always ended in rowdy arguments about who had fought better and what strategies were best in what type of skirmish, and discussions about what tactics should be modified to suit what sort of engagement.

     Nia’s favorite days were the matches she fought with the short sword and dirk that were her secondary weapons. Compared to her spear and shield they were light as air. Those also tended to be the days when she and Cassandra lost to the Chargers, and the days that she would join Cullen’s drills in the afternoons and practice her swordwork. Privately, she thought it good for the army's morale to see that even though she had been a Seeker for longer than many of the troops had been alive there was always room to improve one's martial skills.


	14. Age

      Midday found the squad pausing for a quick meal in a patch of watery fall sun just off the road. Kingsway in the Frostbacks might as well have been Firstfall in any other part of the world. The first snows hadn’t fallen yet, but there was the threat of frost in the air that didn’t dissipate until well into the afternoon. Harding and her people shared around the dried meat and berries pounded together with fat that the Avvar prefered as their traveling rations, and although it had taken getting used to Nia found she enjoyed the salty-sweet mess.

      It was of course as soon as she had taken a mouthful of food that one of Harding’s scouts, Hendersohn, decided to pipe up with a question. “How long’ve you been a Seeker, Seeker? I didn’t think your order had a very long life expectancy.” Cassandra had told her time and time again to make more of an effort to be approachable to the Inquisition’s forces. Which, she assumed, included teasing the troops back as often as they teased her.

      “Is that a dig at my age, Scout Hendersohn?” she asked, expression carefully blank and eyes narrowed. She could practically see the gears working in the other woman’s head, hastily trying to backpedal and rephrase her question. Nia smiled. “I started with the Seekers when I was young. Only eight years old, if memory serves. I was initiated at eighteen, which would mean that I have been a Seeker for one and thirty years. Longer than you have been alive, I suspect.”

      Hendersohn whooped gleefully and pitched an acorn at Aron across their circle. “Y’hear that, Aron? You owe me three silver when we get back to Skyhold!” Nia raised her eyebrows, leveling an even look at the smug Hendersohn and the sulking Aron.

      “We had a bet going on how old you are,” Aron explained. “I bet you were Lady Cassandra’s age, Hendersohn bet you were older.”

      “The Bull thought you had to be sixty at least,” Harding chimed in. Nia sighed and buried her face in one hand. Practically everyone in Skyhold was part of one betting ring or another, covering every wager from when so-and-so would finally hook up with such-and-such to how many times in a week the Chargers would be stumbling home drunk from the Herald’s Rest. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that there were odds on her about one thing or another.

      “Do I even want to know what other bets there are about me?” she asked the scouts, looking at them all in turn. Hendersohn (of course it was Hendersohn; she kept meticulous records of everything) produced a dogeared notebook from some pocket and flipped it open. “How old you are has just been answered. There’s also a bet going about how you lost your finger, whether or not you have a torrid love affair you’ve been hiding for years--” Nia barked a laugh at that, “how many more times someone will ask about the scars before you start punching anyone who asks, how long until you finally give in and go drinking with the Bull and his crew. Bull has good odds on that one, he seems to think it’s only a matter of time.”

      “The Bull is eternally optimistic,” Nia replied, taking a swig from her canteen. “Which is not a mark against him, but it will lose him coin this time. I would almost feel bad about that, were it not for the fact that his services come dear to the Inquisition’s coffers.”

      Harding snickered into her meal, knowing full well from Leliana exactly how much the Bull charged for his mercenary company. Bertha, quiet as she was, piped up for the first time that day with a question that sent Nia into a peal of laughter that left the rest of the squad laughing along with her.

“So how long _have_ you been having that torrid love affair?”


	15. Love

      “Seeker! Seeker Balalova!”

      Nia’s head snapped up, looking for the runner calling her. Everyone was somehow still on high alert in spite of the exhaustion pulling at their limbs. Two day’s rest had hardly made a dent in the bone-deep weariness. _Skyhold_ , Solas called their refuge. _A long-abandoned ruin_ , Nia privately thought. An unknown variable in an equation that already had too many. Maybe the old fortress would prove to be their salvation, but she disliked it all the same. There were too many _what ifs_ lingering unspoken in the air.

      “Here!” she called. The runner approached, not even breathing heavily. Nia relaxed slightly; not an emergency, then.

      “Horsemaster Dennet calls for you in the lower paddock. He thinks your ponies have been found and would like you to join him at your convenience.”

      Nia’s first instinct was to drop everything and run to Dennet, but she knew how bad an example that would set for the rest of the troops milling around him. If the ponies were indeed hers they were hardly going anywhere now they were in Dennet’s care. She didn’t stop the wide smile that broke across her face as she thanked the runner and sent him back to the horsemaster with a message that she would attend him at the paddock as soon as possible. She smiled through the rest of her tasks that needed completing, and when the Inquisitor (newly entitled as he was) passed by with his advisors they remarked on the increased morale of those she directed. Cassandra in particular smiled, pleased to see that her oldest friend was making herself more approachable at long last.

      An hour and a half Nia labored with the squads working to clear the stones from an outbuilding that had collapsed. When at last she was satisfied with the progress for the day she marched down to the paddock with measured strides. It wouldn’t do for a ranking officer to be seen running anywhere, not with tensions still strung as tightly as they were. But there, in the midafternoon sun, were her two ponies. She vaulted the fence easily and welcomed both her animals with open arms.

      They were neither large nor small for ponies, bred of a similar stock that the Orth prefered and she had grown up riding in her wild youth. A chestnut roan and a dappled grey, both (once satisfied their mistress was in as many pieces as when they had left her) nosing at her pockets for the treats she had pilfered on her way to the paddock.

      “I figured they were _yours_ ,” Dennet commented from his position nearby. “Entirely too smart for their own good, and half wild to boot. What’re they called?”

      “Ashes,” said Nia, running her hands over the grey pony’s hocks. “And Strawberries,” as she pointed at the chestnut. “Are they well?”

      “Completely. A little hungry, a little disheveled, but unharmed. As I said, they’re smart. Found one of the scouting parties, wouldn’t leave ‘em alone until they were brought back here.”

      Nia straightened. If Dennet said they were fine, then they were fine. He reminded her of the horsemasters among her people; persons rumored to have wild magic that was not the same as the magic mages wielded. Good horse sense, they described it, and everyone accepted it. In a society as dependent on the horse and pony as the Orth, such people were highly valued.

      “Thank you, Horsemaster Dennet.” Dennet nodded at her, then ducked beneath the fence and headed for the stables. Those with the wild magic, Nia recalled, didn’t always prefer the company of other humans. She turned her attention back to her mounts, pulling the comb from her own hair and ignoring that the long, winding plait fell down around her shoulders, began working the burs from their manes and tails one by one. From the first moment Corypheus’ army had come knocking on Haven’s front door Nia had driven any thought of seeing her ponies again from her head. An order to one of the hostlers to release the horses if the stables were overtaken, Dennet’s thin-lipped agreement and quiet order that if it looked like the animals wouldn’t be able to escape to kill them before the enemy overtook the building. But they were alive and whole, and _of course_ they were, her brilliant ponies who were almost more man than horse.

      If she had looked up in those moments she would have seen Blackwall pausing on his way from one place to another. Seen the way he looked at her and her ponies with something bordering on recognition beyond what their limited acquaintance afforded. As it was, he continued on his way perhaps a little more quickly than he had arrived at the pastoral scene framing woman and horses.


End file.
